


with a pinch of salt

by patriciaselina



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Author Avatar, Extreme amounts of wordiness, Original Female Character - Freeform, Second person POV, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 05:23:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patriciaselina/pseuds/patriciaselina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is eighteen years old and she is sick and tired of being mistaken for a child. He is thirty-four year old and he is sick and tired of being bored. This is the reason why a certain consulting detective and his young boarder go shopping.</p><p>(Silly self-insert fic, typed out in a mere fifteen minutes. Title is not supposed to have a vibe of the supernatural (well hello there SuperWhoLock), but it is in fact from the saying <i>"take what somebody says with a pinch of salt"</i>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	with a pinch of salt

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another bit of self-indulgence. I should be sorry, but I am not. Warnings for a self-insert character, an incomprehensible plot, and the fact that this was typed down impulsively in fifteen minutes. Yes, fifteen minutes, nothing more.

She saunters into the living room without pause or preamble, most probably aiming to plop down in front of the telly, or to fix herself yet another one of her favourite omelettes. Both courses of action she surrenders when she sees you already in front of the television, watching you watching her pace about. And you are you, so of course you can see the question coming.

“Give me honesty,” she says, firmly, obviously stalling for time. Of course you always were honest with your opinions, and she knows that so well. But you know how this will go, so you deign to look her direction and nod. “Now tell me: why do I look like a fourteen-year-old?”

Validation is expected, but it still feels refreshing. The young woman in front of you is many things, and unfortunately for her subtle is not one of them. Well, maybe she is subtle for other people, but not enough for you to not get a good read out of her.

You vaguely remember the last time someone mistook her for a high-schooler - it was a client, his case was boring and he was rapidly getting annoyed at everything, you included. She was dashing off to another one of her lectures, and the man's annoyance turned on her: taunting her would obviously have done no favours for him, and yet the man had let it rip. You had seen her holding her hands behind her back, wanting very much to punch him, and you were puzzled why she did not just do so. It would have gotten the man away sooner.

Nevertheless, she excused herself from the room, and a few minutes later you heard the success of the barricade she purposefully left behind to send the annoying man hurling down the staircase. You were musing about how you managed to rub off on her after all.

“Numerous things,” you reply, your eyes following her as she sits beside you on the sofa. “You _obviously_ know about your height and overall stature factoring in the equation, so I would not emphasize on it any further. There is also the way your face is rounded just so, giving off an air of youth, and the way you dress is extremely understated – in your classes alone, only a few girls your age would choose such a simple style of dress, even as they share your same hectic schedule. That you choose to do so implies a great ignorance as to how men would see you as a possible romantic interest, or in your case, a blatant _dis_ interest in the said topic. You also occasionally wear your hair in pigtails, which is a habit rarely seen in young women your age. It would be carelessly easy for people to mistake you as a tall grade school student. But the way you hold yourself - back straight, chin up - and the _very_ little amount of childlike deference in your speech and motions implies you cannot possibly be as young as that. But people cannot reconcile you with their common image of a college student - tall, or at least some amount of 'wild' or rambunctious - and so middle school student it is, or as your country would prefer, a high-schooler.”

“Nothing I already don't know, then.” She purses her lips, contemplating...something, maybe her next question. No, not maybe, definitely her next question. “Any advice?”

“At looking older?” You supply, and she nods. “I don't have any particular methods in that. I have, after all, never been mistaken as far younger than I actually am. I am saying this because while the world finds little difference from a thirty-year-old and a twenty-year-old, it finds a big chasm between a middle schooler and a college student, and this is what bothers you, yes?”

“Everyone hovers around me with hesitation, as if I'm a glass doll with a label reading ‘ _highly breakable’_ on it stamped with neon green ink.” She murmurs, obviously annoyed by this. You never really did understand why this unnerved her so – this was one of the tricks life gave her, the trick of looking younger, something women thrice her age pay millions to achieve.

But...you can understand, at least in part, how this would affect her career in the future. She obviously wanted to be a career woman, and one of the factors in gaining a company’s respect was always appearances – her age, her gait, the clothes she chose. You know yourself that had you not given a minimal thought to your wardrobe people would not have taken you as seriously as they do now, what with your eccentricities and your skills that the world thinks strange.

It is the middle of the dull afternoon, the show blaring on the telly is egregious in its stupidity (the matriarch was having an affair with the driver, why was nobody else getting this), your older, ex-Army doctor flat mate is out and about on another one of his boring errands, you are too bored to even play the violin, and she is too bored to even make the afternoon tea. So you do what you think you should do, and encourage her into action.

“Tell you what, let’s go about and fix that, why don’t we?” You grin at her, and there is probably something in your look that unnerves her because you can see her flinch away. Which is weird – she has been occupying your living room for the past month now, and all your body parts and experiments never did scare her. Was it the way you worded it, so intentionally vaguely?

“Sherlock,” she starts, carefully, as if reassuring herself that it was actually you she was actually talking to. She rarely did call you by name, after all. “Bringing hell onto people that think I’m a child is not ‘fixing’ it. And like I keep telling you, I was only going to do that the one time. You could remember the things he implied about my heritage, after all.”

Ahh, her mind, so capable and yet so quick to jump to conclusions. “I was not about to suggest that, seeing as it is both dull and a waste of time.” You cock your head at her, incredulous. “I was suggesting that we go take measures to ensure you finally looking your age. Young women like shopping, do they not?”

There is a strange look on her face, somewhat sour with a hint of amusement and delight. “They do. I don’t, but if you’re offering who am I to refuse. But as I am sure you can obviously read on my face” – and here she uses both index fingers to point, for emphasis – “none of those itty-bitty shorts that most girls my age seem to adore, and oh God no leggings, these legs are obviously not for ogling, they are for _Christmas ham_.”

“I wasn’t planning on doing so, such a wardrobe would be of little use to you in your stay in London. I was thinking more of some button downs and a nice suit, one suitable for your age. Maybe a nice coat. A trench coat. You do get colder quicker than the rest of us, obviously because of your residing in a tropical country. And also, I fear those longing looks you keep giving the coat stand might find _me_ without coat sooner or later.”

She laughs back at you, a slight and hesitant laugh, still a tad puzzled by this seemingly uncharacteristic bout of behavior from your end. “Sooner, actually. I was wondering why it only took you this long to say something about it, though.”

“I delete unnecessary things, remember.” You reply, succinctly and without apologies. You know her enough to know that your crass honesty does not scare her, and in fact she is prone to blunt sincerity, almost verging on the tactless, herself. “But right now I am too bored to let anything else be of relevance. Take your coat, then, we’re going to make your lecturer regret calling you a child.”

“How did you…” she starts, but then shakes her head, mumbling “of course” as she goes off to get her coat.

You disentangle yourself from the couch cushions, turn the television set off, and go to your room to change out of the dressing-gown. There’s another thing you take from the bedside table, always waiting and ready for usage. Mycroft has let you down many times before, but his credit cards never did.

* * *

You are coming home from the Tesco when you see them. When you do, you pause, contemplate, second-guess yourself and contemplate once more.

The tall man in front of you is very obviously _Sherlock_. You’ve been living with him for a while now, and you notice many things but you can recognize his gait from miles away, behind a night-vision glass even. He left you a message saying that he was going out somewhere with Patricia – your young boarder, the college student in the exchange program that some way or another has been led to occupying the sofa-bed in your living room that should probably not be for human habitation. The young woman beside your flat mate, however, could probably not be her, but it could not probably _not_ be her.

She’s wearing a dark trench coat resembling Sherlock’s own, the likes of which you never did see her wear before. From what little you can see of the outfit underneath you can see a dark-colored shirt underneath, and an even darker pair of denim pants. What truly surprises you, however, are the shoes – around five-inches in height and glossy black, looking absolutely intimidating.

“So, Sherlock.” You introduce them to your presence by way of casual conversation; you can see how Sherlock knew all the while that you were there by the way he doesn’t flinch, and how Patricia did not because she does, however minutely. “Where is our boarder and where did you place her?”

“The joke is not funny, John, and I do hope it dies a natural death.” Sherlock rolls his eyes at you, somewhat distraught. “It would be more obvious to anyone that our boarder is here. I think my efforts were more than satisfactory, this time.”

Patricia smiles at you, a little upwards motion, her face almost bashful and contrary to her new outfit. “We were bored and Sherlock took me shopping. Well, more like Sherlock tossed clothes my direction and told me I was going to wear them. That’s more my kind of shopping, actually – don’t give me choices, because I will never make them. Clothes are boring.” Here she reaches down to tug at her cuffs, content. “But these are pretty. I’d wear them, no question.”

“Of course they would be to your satisfaction,” Sherlock huffed from beside her, his gloved hands tucked in his pockets. It was a rather cold day. “You never really did like the bright-colored T-shirts you have in your possession, and when you do wear them you look like a woman enraged. You’ve always been more comfortable in dark colours – from what I’ve been able to see of your daily wardrobe, around three-fourths of your clothing is in black – and you prefer denim over slacks, always think you’re going to rip a hole in your slacks, what with your predilection for not moving gingerly and the poor fabric choices you inadvertently made.”

“I can see where you’re coming from, Sherlock,” you nod at him, at both of them, thinking about all the ways they could be mistaken as siblings and yet not, “but don’t you think the high heels are a bit…well…”

Sherlock, bless his soul, raises an eyebrow her direction. “She gives off the impression of having a horrible sense of balance, which she does have, what with bumping into doors and walls, and she views high-heeled shoes as a guilty pleasure due to that. However, she’s very much like you, in a way. Some way or another, her balance is improved by walking on those shoes that other women would call ‘death-traps’.”

“Mostly because I don’t want to reach my end snagged on a seam in the sidewalk,” she snaps back, rolling her eyes. “Another reason why I choose wedges over stilettos, I guess. But of course _you_ already knew that.”

“You’re five-foot-six now, around John’s height. Is that sufficient?”

You didn’t even notice that until the three of you walk side-by-side: oh yes, she actually is. She’s always made good use of the inches life gave her, never slouching or huddling into herself as others were wont to do, holding herself as high as she could – you think this is one of the reasons why people, albeit mistaking her for a child, always second-guess themselves. That, and the fact that when she starts talking, she is quick-witted and merciless in her opinions, with an accent that has been more than once mistaken for American. This is more obvious now, as when she turns to you, she does not have to look up.

“Oh, right, I had not noticed. Yes, this is interesting. And sufficient. I always wondered how you guys live on the higher levels.”

“Just the same as usual, I’m afraid.” you sigh, amused at your flat mates’ amusement. “But then again, society deems _me_ the short one, as well. Sherlock’s the one who lives on a higher level.”

“My father is five-foot-four, and he adores how people always mistake him for the college student.” Five-foot-four is the average height for a Filipino male, you remember her saying the other day. Reaching the five-foot mark had always been her dream, and it had always been just a half-inch out of reach. “It’s one of our major differences, that. And if I choose to wear these shoes, I’ll be taller than him!”

“You should. I think the look on your old man’s face would be priceless.”

“Hunter would probably play with the heels, I guess. Use them as hammers, or something. Another reason why I should not have thin-heeled shoes.” she sighs, just as she always did when it came to talking about her brother. Patricia was enjoying this, yes, this stint in a foreign land with foreigners every which way, but it was plain to see how much she wished her brother was pacing beside her. You did not need to be Sherlock to discern that much – although you wonder, does he understand such a thing as love between siblings? Maybe he does not.

Sherlock turns so he is walking backwards, facing the both of you. He turns to her and says, “There. We have been walking the whole way and to note there has been no one mistaking you for a middle-schooler. People keep seeing you as somewhere in your late teens, so sixteen and above, and on occasion as somewhere in your early twenties. So see, this” and here he gestures vaguely to her ensemble “is not a disguise. I chose the clothes to better establish your own self. If anything was a disguise, it is your original wardrobe. You’re not a child, Patricia, and I don’t think you _think_ like one, either. You’re no idiot.”

“That’s surprising, coming from you, especially since I currently can’t make heads or tails out of my financial ratios.” She grins at him. “But thanks. I am very glad that you think I am not an idiot.”

“Disguise is a self-portrait after all,” Sherlock murmurs, seemingly lost in thought. You remember where he got that from. “and what your wardrobe belies is that you are an extremely straightforward young woman, with not much distress over color or accoutrement. So I merely had to play to that. You’re welcome.”

Patricia is humming a nameless tune now, perfectly content. You know your flat mate has very little use for sentiment, but you can see the hints of a flash in his eyes as he turns from watching her, watching you. The arrogant sod is clearly pleased with his actions of fussing over her like so – and you can see the unspoken question in Sherlock’s eyes: _Good, that was a Good Thing to do, was it not?_

So you nod, imperceptibly, errantly. _Yes, it was, seems you’re better at making friends than you originally thought_ , you think but don’t say. “Let’s go and have a bite,” you say instead, and the three of you buy noodles at a Chinese restaurant, and even this domesticity is _not_ dull, for once.


End file.
